From major art gallery sales to Nobel Prize-winners, NFTs continue to hit the headlines. Let’s take a look at the past week’s action in non-fungible tokens.
This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News
Andy Warhol Foundation NFTs Yield Over $3M
Last week’s Nutshell called out the Andy Warhol Foundation collaboration with Christies; this week, “Andy Warhol: Machine Made” hit the market. Five unique NFTs brought in nearly $3.4M, with net proceeds going to support the annual funding of The Andy Warhol Museum and further Warhol Foundation efforts. The global auction brought in final buyers from the U.S., Asia, and Europe.
More Memes!?!
Classic memes have hit the NFT market this week as ‘Harambe’ and ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ have hit the market.
YouTube classic ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ sold this week for over $760K; while speculation was abound that the buyer would have the original video removed from YouTube, the buyer stated that it would not be doing so, citing the video’s importance to “popular culture”.
Additionally, ‘Harambe’, the gorilla who was killed and thrust into pop culture as a viral 2016 meme, will soon be the latest internet meme to hit the market as an NFT. Harambe follows other major cultural NFTs, such as ‘Nyan Cat’, ‘Disaster Girl’, and more.
Related Reading | The Rapper Who Bought Eminem’s NFT For $100K And Transformed It Into 7M Views
Major Musicians? Platform OneOf Is Working On That
Partnering with Quincy Jones and his production company, music platform OneOf announced a substantial fundraising round this week. The platform is looking to take an environmentally-friendly approach to tokenizing musician’s work, and also emphasizing accessibility for fans. Artists expected to feature in the debut release include Whitney Houston, John Legend, Doja Cat, and more.
The $10M CryptoPunk
Sotheby’s is bringing a standalone CryptoPunk to the market, the auction house announced on Twitter this week. “Covid Alien” CryptoPunk #7530 will be up for auction on June 10th, and is expected to command anywhere from $5-10M+. The most recent alien sale went for 4,200 ETH (over $10M in today’s value).
Ethereum continues to be the main driver of non-fungible tokens. | Source: ETH-USD on TradingView.com
LaMelo Ball: Career NFTs?
Just a few weeks ago, NBA guard Terry Rozier brought NFT sneakers to market that matched a pair that he wore in-game. Now, teammate and potential Rookie Of The Year star LaMelo Ball looks to get involved as well.
Ball announced limited-edition NFTs, tied to his career achievements, set to come within the next month. Ball will release 500 dynamic NFTs, and will allow owners to ‘burn’ them to potentially have physical memorabilia. He will also release 9,500 standard NFTs. Ball is teaming up with California-based design studio Playground to bring the tokens to market.
NFT Nobel Prize? Why Not, Says UC Berkeley
The University of California: Berkeley is bringing something fresh to the NFT table; in an announcement this week, the university shared that documents involved with research for two different Nobel Prize-winning discoveries would be up for 24-hour auction as NFTs. One NFT is around revolutionary discoveries in gene editing, the second in groundbreaking research in cancer immunotherapy.
Related Reading | Dynamo Kyiv To Sell NFT Tickets For 2021 Season
Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com
